I agree with most of the posters that 2-3 hours each way is my limit on a vacation where I am already doing a great deal of moving around from place to place; however, if I am on a more relaxed schedule, I have a higher tolerance for an extended daytrip.

One that comes to mind was week long trip that we did to Sharm el-Sheik, Eygpt while living in Italy. Since we spent most of the week snorkeling, swimming, riding camels and doing other outdoor activities, we decided to do a daytrip to Petra, Jordan. This involved a bus, a plane, another bus and then an hour hike into the site. It was spectacular and well worth leaving at 4am and getting back at midnight.

The longest has been 3.5 hours from Vienna to Salzburg (and another 3.5 hours back). It was a beautiful day and I had a first class train seat. I enjoyed it greatly. Have done Brussels to Amsterdam a few times; Brussels to Paris makes a much better day trip.

2 hours. I might do 3 for good reason. We went from our French place to Bordeaux and back last autumn and it was hell. Left at 8.30pm for back at 8.30pm. Spent 2 hours there.

2 hours one-way.

Usually within one hour each way. In very rare occasions 2 hours.

It kind of depends. When we are in a city, I don't especially like to take day trips so we limit them to 1-2 hours at the most (e.g. Giverny, Chartres). However, when we are staying in a rural area like Provence or Tuscany or Normandy, we do lots of long day trips, driving for several hours to see attractions in the area.

Two hours each way seems to be reasonable, but I wouldn't want to travel any more than that for a day trip.

We took the train from the Cinque Terre to Florence, had time to walk from the train station to visit David, have lunch at an outdoor cafe near the Pont Vecchio and do some shopping at the outdoor market. I would have liked more time, but as long as I got to see David and some of the city, it was worth it.

At home 2- 2.5 hours seems to get us to anywhere we want to go to just for the day.

However, once in New York we did a day trip to Niagara Falls (Flying both ways) - That is a long day trip!

hi tcreath - yes i know you were talking about hols but i was really just showing how small ireland actually is to travel around.

on hols the furthest i'd go is from the pool to the bar, and only then if there was no-one around to make the trip for me

That's funny, because my reaction/experience is the opposite. I wouldn't want to waste so much of a precious vacation by spending so many hours of a day in transit. But then I remembered when we lived in Palm Harbor, Fl (west coast, just north of Clearwater) and would drive to Ft. Lauderdale (down 75 and across Alligator Alley) and back in a single day for my daughter to work with a special Irish dance coach. She was preparing for Worlds, and we did the 10-hour Saturday roundtrip about 8 times. Looking back, I can't believe we did that---and my second thought is that I should write it down before I forget completely in gaga-land, so she won't put me in a nursing home!